FOR half a century Albi (Albrecht) Rosenthal was probably the best known and most respected representative of his profession not only in this country but internationally. He was heir to a remarkable tradition of bookselling. His grandfather Jacques Rosenthal had built up a firm renowned throughout Europe and beyond for its scholarly standards and unmatched holdings. It dealt in fine books of all periods, but especially medieval manuscripts and incunabula; eminent librarians and private collectors from all countries frequented its premises in Munich. Jacques’s son Erwin, who worked with his father, was a distinguished art historian. He encouraged his own eldest son, Albi, to share his interests. The house was well stocked with books and pictures, so when the schoolboy had time to spare from his regular studies at the Wilhelmsgymnasium he was able to enjoy at home extra-curricular instruction that prepared him well for his next move after leaving school.
The year was 1933. The family being Jewish, Jacques’s position in his own firm and that of his son were already in doubt. In September Albi, who since boyhood had been attracted by what he knew of England, arrived here at the age of nearly 19, and went to stay in the house of Robin Flower, Deputy Keeper in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum. Flower arranged for him, though under age, to study illuminated manuscripts and palaeography in the Museum. Some six months later, at his father’s suggestion, Fritz Saxl, the director of the Warburg Institute, found a place for him, and he spent three and a half years there, becoming assistant to Rudolf Wittkower. Meanwhile he had taken the first step in his bookselling career. In 1936 he set up his own business, A. Rosenthal Ltd., issuing his first catalogue in 1939. The next year he was bombed out of his Curzon Street flat and moved himself and his business to Oxford, where he lived for the rest of his life, becoming a British citizen in 1946.
From childhood Rosenthal’s abiding love of music was of central importance in his life. He began to learn the violin at the age of 7. Chamber music was his great delight, and he took part in it with friends whenever possible, whether in England or on his frequent travels to the continent and the United States, when he invariably took his violin with him. He also played at the first desk in the Oxford University Orchestra for more than 25 years from its revival in 1948.
It is not surprising that his musical and palaeographical interests should soon have begun to dominate his professional activities: music, autograph manuscripts and letters became his specialities. When in 1955 Otto Haas, who had owned the renowned Berlin music and auction house of Leo Liepmannssohn, decided to retire, Rosenthal acquired the business. It had been founded in 1866, and he was proud to be only the third owner. The premises were in London, which from then on became his principal place of work, although he continued to run his Oxford concern.
Haas had regularly issued catalogues of antiquarian music. For a short time Rosenthal continued the series, but for him, that way of working was perhaps too impersonal. He liked to deal directly with people, and as a collector himself (especially of Mozart and Nietzsche) he understood collectors. At home in English, German, French and Italian (his mother was a daughter of the Italian antiquarian bookseller and publisher Leo S. Olschki), he enjoyed the contrasts between the various national habits of mind with which his work made him familiar and the remarkable diversity of the personalities who made up his clientele. Just as his grandfather had attracted a steady flow of visitors to the Briennerstrasse in Munich, so his premises in Belsize Park Gardens became, if perhaps on a more modest scale, an indispensable port of call for travelling scholars, collectors and librarians. There they could be sure to find on the shelves, or to have laid before them, unexpected items germane to their particular interests; shared enthusiasms became the basis of many firm friendships.
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Rosenthal’s international standing brought him both honours and responsibilities. He was a trustee of the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, and was awarded the silver medal of the Mozarteum in Salzburg in 1991. He was also a trustee of the Paul Sacher Stiftung, founded in Basle in 1986 with the object of bringing together substantial archives of important 20th-century composers. Rosenthal successfully negotiated the acquisition of the Stravinsky archive for Sacher, the most arduous assignment of his whole career, as well as those of Webern, Maderna, Wolpe, Carter, Birtwistle, Kagel and others.
At their home in Oxford Rosenthal and his wife, a daughter of the eminent Nietzsche scholar Oscar Levy, organised regular lectures and concerts that brought together distinguished people of many nationalities in all branches of learning. He played an active part in Oxford affairs. He was a member of Worcester College, president of the university orchestra, and the recipient of an honorary MA in 1979. He also served on the council of the Bodleian Library, and during his 80th birthday celebration in the Divinity School announced that he was donating to the library his valuable collection of editions of Mozart’s music published in the composer’s lifetime. He was the author of numerous articles and was honoured with two Festschriften.
He is survived by his wife, a son and two daughters.
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Albi Rosenthal, bookseller, was born on October 5, 1914. He died on August 3, 2004, aged 89.